Some Advice on Improving my Solo Q game

Eskyocha·2/16/2015, 8:50:35 PM·1 votes·1,041 views

Hi all,

Been playing League for a while, but I am having trouble (as many of us are) climbing out of Bronze. I consider myself a relatively solid player, and I feel like I have at least a basic understanding of the mechanics. My KDA is 4, and I main mid lane so I can carry teams. I have a lot of friend who's stats seem to mirror mine, yet they are in a much higher division. I have some ideas about why, but.....

You can check my stats here:

http://loldb.gameguyz.com/analyze/default/index/33021912/1/20168613

and here

http://www.lolking.net/summoner/na/20168613

Does anyone have an idea of what's going wrong? If you see something that seriously needs improving which is causing me to stay in bronze, let me know. Don't mean to be annoying, but I'd prefer to receive advice that is backed up by the data rather than "I feel you should do X". Though I am willing to listen to any forms of advice. :)

In my experience, I have had one of 3 game types: 1. the decent to good team - this team is pretty much a free win because we work together to achieve objectives, 2. the unreliable team - this team will have 1 feeder and the rest kind of lost on what to do. I then pick up the slack and shot call for warding, drag, baron, overextension, towers, inhibs, etc.. These games are won half the time, 3. the feeding team - this team is a nightmare and we have at least 2 feeders who do not want to listen to anyone. These are guaranteed-loss games.

I'd say out of 10 games, four of them are in category 1, 6 of them are in category 3, and 3 of them in 2. All in all, I should average around a 40% win rate (I was simply eyeing it, and didn't do the math). Given what I know about the league system, that should keep me at around the same elo I am at now, even if I continue playing (assuming the percentage doesn't change). Especially since you will actually rise in rank even if you win 50% of the time.

Thoughts? Thanks for any help! Eskyocha

7 Comments

GundayMonday2/16/2015, 9:02:11 PM1 votes

Happy to spec a few games and give some feedback. I've been streaming a few coaching sessions so others can watch and learn too. Add me in game if you're not shy about a few people seeing your game and happy to give you some insight.

yacota2/16/2015, 9:20:29 PM1 votes

not going to lie. whether you get out of bronze or not actually matters little about how well you do. ive been playing for 4 years now and was at 700 ELO (back before the rank system changes). for referance silver started at 1200. now im in silver trying to get to gold, and having the same problem as in bronze. Trolls, AFK's, players that simply dont know how to play (and insist they do). I guess your best chances tho would be to learn to be an effective top and jungler, and do everything you can to avoid support. Im a support main and have been pretty much since i started but my ranked support scores look mediocre, switch over to my mao, renek, jax top and J4 jungle and suddenly my win rate is diamond worthy. Also learn to differentiate between champions that are good in Pro (constructed teams that practice with each other constantly) and champions that are good in solo Q (champions that rely as little as possible on your teamates and have as many important kit pieces as possible, meaning things like being tanky and having some degree of damage while being able to cc). Right now im finding that Mao is my go to top lane champion. hes inherantly tanky. Has 2 different build paths (one for main tank, and one thats slightly more damage oriented). he is super simple to learn and combo properly. The current meta only has a couple champions that directly counter him, which wont matter if you play smart (and a decent jungler will help with any poor matchups anyway). And the best thing about mao is alot of players where you are in rank dont understand HOW to properly counter him, so even if you get a bad matchup you should still have the advantage. As for jungle I really only play J4. hes just like mao. Tanky, good damage, amazing CC, and hes one of the top jungles right now.

Hopefully this helps you a little

MrBuffington2/16/2015, 10:44:51 PM1 votes

Narrow down your champion pool; pick like 1-2 champions per role to play over like, 2-3 roles (maybe have one or two easy champions in the other roles in case you have to fill) gravitate towards the simpler champions. I'd tell you to stop playing Azir but I'm not sure you'd listen to me, lol. Think of it this way; if you think you have mechanics that are good enough to play Azir (imo the most complicated champion in the game), if you play easier champions, you can just style all over everyone in the game. It might take longer to get good at a new champion, and that's fine, but it will be better for you in the long run; learning your fundamentals will get you farther in this game than any OP FOTM pick. You seem to be having some success with Xerath; I personally think he's too complicated (his ult primarily), but if you're feeling good on him, ride that out.

Resist dying, focus on objectives; KDA doesn't matter. Own up to your mistakes, look to be learning from what you did wrong in a game (everyone makes mistakes) and work to improve your game. Don't worry about your team; it doesn't matter. At this division you can seriously solo carry from any role so long as your teammates are remotely competent (and if you happen to get matched with a particularly bad team, don't sweat it, happens to everyone, law of averages or something). Here's an example from two ranked games I played today:

Here's the first game, I was playing support. I got my ADC fed; super, super fed (she was like 10/0 and 50 CS ahead at one point). And then I threw the game. I tilted super hard, I started dying unnecessarily trying to make plays or whatever, and we lost the game. Sure I can blame my teammates, the Yi who openly admitted they didn't know what they were doing, or the Syndra who didn't look like she understood how her stun worked, but it doesn't change the fact that I made mistakes in that game that, if I played better, I could have single-handedly carried the game, even as Janna support. The important thing is not to dwell on whatever teammates you had since hey, maybe they were having a bad day, maybe it was their first time playing that champion, who really cares since you'll probably never run into them again in solo-q. Focus on correcting your mistakes and improving your own game. I know a lot of mistakes I made that game, and I know I made mistakes that I don't even realize I made, and for me it's about improving off of those so the next time I'm in this situation (which, it's solo-q, will happen again), I will make fewer and fewer mistakes until I can actually carry the game.

Here's the second game. At this point, since I was just coming off that last game, I was sort of in damage-control mode, trying to get myself off tilt. I didn't do much this game, but hey, some games you get lucky and don't have to. From the outside it looks kind of like a stomp, which it was to a degree, but that doesn't mean there's nothing to learn though. I was farming like absolute crap this game, I misplayed most of my fights, my build made no sense whatsoever. What I didn't do, and improved on in this game, was try to make some crazy plays and end up getting myself killed. I toned most things down, maybe to a fault (again, damage-control mode), but I didn't die, I caught up in CS, I let Graves and Leona have a freaking party however they wanted since if I'm not carrying the game, the last thing I should do is become a liability to my team.

It's kind of this weird art of playing to your team while ignoring them at the same time. The first game I kept wanting to get Yi into the fight and start wrecking people, but I wasn't paying attention to the fact that 1. they have an engage comp, I'm a disengage champion, and I can win a fight by just waiting for them to go ham and then disrupting everything they do instead of trying to engage on them, and 2. Yi was second guessing himself, and it would have been better to peel for him and create openings for him to do what Yi does instead of trying to throw him into a fight. In the second game, even with the mistakes I was making, I saw that Graves and Leona were in a position to just face stomp the entire game, so I upgraded my trinket earl(ier), started warding for my team, went around managing side lanes and just let my team do whatever they wanted. Yea I could have carried; the last kill of the game is actually me 100-0 Kassadin right before the surrender vote happened, but it's easier to actually throw the game if I let my ego get in the way, trying to be some superstar that makes all the plays and hogs the ball from my team, instead of focusing on the larger game that's being played.

EDIT: One more tip; check the score board more often, and take it into account when you're playing the game; this is something I rarely do and seriously need to.

Pryotra2/17/2015, 7:16:03 AM1 votes

Well, your farming and warding could use a little work, but I've seen worse farm and I do see you are warding some. Generally, I would say your biggest struggle looks to be focusing objectives. Going through the lost games, you seem to really struggle to focus any objectives, even with extreme leads.

Close out your games faster, and you should be able to win more.

Also, I would say your champ picks are all over the place. Try to stick to a core group of champs, with 1 that you favor, and use that setup to carry you up. I'm not saying be ignorant of other roles, I'm saying focus on one champion in a role in order to really master that champ, and learn all the little stuff by muscle memory.

Other than that, I would say practice your mechanics and keep trying. You should be able to climb out of bronze.